Counter protest to the Westboro Baptist Church

[zipplewrath]

A friend of mine and some of her friends got this started. Apparently copying it from someone else. Sounded like the kind of thing popular with DU so I thought I drop this post about it. This the link:

http://wbclovesjewsandgays.chipin.com/wbc-loves-rva

It started late last Thursday night, later than any of us should have been up. A few friends and I were tweeting, Facebooking, and instant messaging about the upcoming visit to Richmond by the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). We were incensed that these assholes were coming and spreading their hate here, but how to respond? People suggested peaceful rallies, funny signs like they did in San Francisco, dance parties, and totally ignoring them.

But then my friend David told me about a synagogue in Manhattan who asked people to pledge $1 or more for every minute the WBC was at their synagogue. They raised $10,000 in 50 minutes. Good ideas are worth copying.

On a whim, we set up a donation site and a Facebook site early Fridy morning and passed it around to each other, chatting by IM, email, Facebook and even getting on a conference call at one point to ask "What do you think? What name should we use? Will anybody actually give us money? Should we get some official organization to sponsor us?" We launched the websites and within an hour had a couple of hundred dollars. So then we were back on email, flying back and forth with "oh, shit, I think we need a press release" and "did you see how much we got?" and "who has time to email some reporters?"

Twenty-four hours later, more than 100 people have donated more than $2500 to us. This is blowing my mind. Just think about what that says about the power to drown out hate when you make even a half-assed, strung together, last-minute effort.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Best idea yet for dealing with those assholes!

[bluevoter4life]

2. They should take this nationwide

And they should donate the proceeds to a gay rights organization. That'll really piss 'em off.

[MuseRider]

3. We did that when he used to protest our concerts.

Every symphony concert we and our audience were subjected to the lovely experience of walking through the group as they yelled at us, or prayed or sang. ICK! They actually donated. Kinda took the wind out of it when people heard about that.

Good luck. It has been done before and I believe it was successful. Unfortunately they are a staple here at every event, every day on the street corners and people just ignore them.